Bloodkin (Jaseth of Jaelshead) (28 page)

“Sod off Jaseth, this is none of your business.” She pushed past me and stalked down to her room. Emma followed, giving
Jimmy a knowing look, and I retreated through the door to my own quarters. Through the wall I could hear Lolitha sobbing and the thumps of hard objects being hurled at the wall.

“No Jimmy, I said
leave me alone
,” I heard her yell at her Mentor.

Oh hell. Maybe I should do something. The thumping grew more vigorous and I made up my mind.

Back out in the hall, Jimmy was slumped against the wall outside the door. I had remembered something Charlie had told me once about girls, something about not letting them rage alone because it only made things worse. Well, now was as good a time as any to try that theory out. Jimmy looked up at me as I squared my shoulders, and he whispered “good luck” as I turned the handle on her door.

“
What the hell is wrong with you?
I said, leave me
alone
!” A book thumped against the half-open door. “
Fyar khanall
, Jimmy, I swear—” She stopped shouting briefly as I quickly ducked inside and shut the door behind me.

“Go away Jaseth,” she muttered, her back turned.

Okay, deep breath. You can do this, I told myself. The room was a mess, she had pulled most of the books from her bookcase and they were lying open in a pile on the floor. I walked over, spun her round and hugged her fiercely as she struggled and beat at me ineffectually with her tiny fists, howling with rage.

“It’s not fair!” she cried when she had calmed a little. “She’s such a bitch, an effing bloody bitch. I can’t even have one nice day with my friends without—” And her voice cracked as she leaned into my shoulder and wept. “It’s just not fair. She’s always got everything she’s ever wanted. Including you!” She pulled back and glared at me with red-rimmed eyes. “But that’s not enough! She’s evil, Jas. Pure, effing,
evil.
”

“What did she say, ‘Litha?”

“She said… She said I… Oh.” And she fell to weeping again. I kept holding her and stroking her hair awkwardly. Girls crying made me highly uncomfortable, but at least she wasn’t throwing things any more. She finally stopped sobbing and extracted herself from my arms.

“Ugh, I bet I look disgusting. I hope I haven’t got too much snot on your nice robe. Hang on.” She went into her bathroom and blew her nose loudly. Just as she emerged there was a knock on the door.

“Lolitha?” It was Emma. “May we please come in and talk to you?” Lolitha looked at me miserably and I shrugged.

“Fine, whatever. Come in.” Emma entered leading a pale, red-eyed Sallagh.

“Um, Lolitha?” Sallagh whispered, her eyes on the floor. “I’m sorry. I really am. I’ve been a cow and I… I didn’t know. And now I do and I’m really sorry.” She rushed through her words, then turned and fled from the room, her eyes leaking fresh tears. Lolitha and I stared at Emma, open-mouthed.

“Is it safe to come in?” Jimmy stuck his head round the door, and seeing that the books had ceased to fly, came in and gave Lolitha a hug.

“What did you say to her?” I asked Emma, almost unable to believe the transformation in Sallagh.

Emma shrugged. “I didn’t say anything. I just… showed her what it feels like, is all.”

“You mean with Hầұeӣ?” Lolitha stared at the Nea’thi woman accusingly and Emma nodded. “Oh.”

“It’s an old Mentoring trick,” Jimmy explained to his Bloodkin hesitantly. “Kind of like Psychotherapy but, well, the opposite. Emma released the chemicals in Sallagh’s brain that produce the same kinds of feelings that her words do to you.”

“It’s something of a last resort, but I think she understands now. She’s not a bad girl—” Lolitha snorted but Emma continued firmly, “She’s just a bit self-involved.”

I couldn’t help myself, “A bit!” and Jimmy elbowed me.

“Anyway, she now understands the consequences of her careless words. I expect she’ll be more thoughtful in the future.

Lolitha sniffed, then surprised us all. “Will she be okay?”

Emma smiled at her. “She’ll be fine. She’ll probably cry herself to sleep, the neural chemicals will dissipate and her emotional balance will be back to normal by tomorrow.” She turned to leave.

“Emma?” Lolitha called, and she turned in the doorway. “Thanks.”

Emma grinned. “That’s what I’m here for.”

It didn’t take long for Lolitha to have a bath and tidy herself up. I offered to help Jimmy sort out the mess in their room, but he laughed and told me that it was a Mentor’s job so I left him to it and went to find Charlie. Up in the common room, I told him what Emma had said and he nodded thoughtfully.

“I thought she might, yes.”

“Really? Would you ever do it to me?”

He looked a bit startled. “Well, I mean, I suppose I would. If I really had to, of course. But it’s you we’re talking about JJ, I hardly think you’d ever need it.”

“Um, okay? I bet Sallagh didn’t think she needed it.”

“Yeah, well, that’s exactly why she did. She was pretty cruel, and girls can be, well, sensitive. But you’re… I mean, you’re self-contained, Jas, but never self-centred. I’ve
seen
that. You did a bloody nice thing back there, going and looking after her.”

It didn’t seem like much of a thing at the time, I just hadn’t wanted Lolitha to completely destroy her room, and I told Charlie as much. To my chagrin, he laughed.

“See? You’re a good kid and you don’t even realise it! It’s very refreshing. Aren’t I lucky to have such a good Bloodkin?” And he grabbed me in one of his unbreakable headlocks and ground his knuckles into my skull.

“Ow! Sod off you big elephant! I’ll be not nice if you’re not careful!”

He laughed again as he let me go and I staggered back, slightly out of breath.

“I’d just like to see you try!”

As predicted, Sallagh was asleep when we left to meet up with Telgeth’s brother. Emma stayed with her Bloodkin, but everyone else came with us, keen to continue the day’s festivities. The sky was already dark when we departed and there was a definite bite to the air. None of us Humans had ever been to a tavern in the
Human area of the city before, and as soon as we left the Quarter I was hopelessly lost. Luckily the Mentors knew where we were going and eventually the streets, wider than in the Nea’thi Quarter but equally twisty, led us to an area of the Merchants’ Quarter in the east of the city, past the bridge to the castle. We could hear the tavern before we saw it, music and loud shouts of laughter drifting out onto the streets. We rounded a corner and there it was, the Silver Squirrel, its painted board illuminated by light spilling from the open door. Inside, the air was thick and acrid with candle and tobacco smoke and the stink of spilled ale, even though it was still early and the evening’s revelry only just starting to get going. We found Tamoth perched by the bar, sipping a glass of wine.

“Sweet Lilbecz, ‘Geth! Bring the entire Hall with you?”

Telgeth grinned. “Almost! Have you eaten yet?”

“Nope, I thought I’d wait for you lot. Shall we find a table?”

We secured a large booth by the fire and dragged over some extra chairs so we could all sit, although it was a bit snug. The waitress brought over plates of stew and loaves of fragrant and crunchy garlic bread, as well as bottles of wine and pitchers of ale. We tucked in to our meals as Tamoth and Telgeth gossiped about folk from home. I knew of most of the people they spoke of but felt curiously removed. Jaelshead seemed like a million miles away.

Not long after we had finished mopping up the last of the stew with the bread, the band started playing. The music was as different from the music in the Shivering Thistle as the tavern itself. In the Quarter our group would have gone unremarked, but here we were eyed a bit suspiciously by some of the pub’s patrons. The band itself was a group of seven musicians, playing an assortment of guitars, drums, fiddles and an accordion. While the music at the Thistle was serene and beautiful, here it was loud, frenzied, and perfect for dancing. I regretted the absence of Sallagh only briefly as Lolitha pulled me up to dance, but it wasn’t long before Telgeth grabbed her off me and dragged her round in a mad waltz. A pretty girl with bouncing, curly brown hair and a daringly low-cut dress clutched at my hand and spun me around but then was off, dancing with someone else, before I could even ask her name.

The night passed in a blur of wine and song and pretty girls, but realistically, the nauseating stink of tobacco smoke and the odd look the Mentors were receiving made me glad when we decided to head home. Telgeth was furiously kissing a girl in the corner and was less impressed to be pulled away.

“She was
not
a prostitute!” he replied hotly to Lolitha’s ribbing.

Outside, our breath made little puffs in the air and the stars shone down coldly. The streets were full of laughing groups, making their way between parties or stumbling home after imbibing too much.

We made our way back to the Hall slowly, and our group spread out a bit on the rather long walk. Richard and James zoomed up the front, giving their Bloodkin piggy-back rides, hooting with laughter.

Lolitha and I brought up the rear. “Oh bollocks, hold on a second, Jas.” She grabbed my shoulder to steady herself as she pulled off one of her shoes to fish out a stone that had become caught.

“Hey, um, thanks for this afternoon eh,” she told me.

“Ha, not a problem ‘Litha. Charlie told me once how to handle girls who were, um…”

“Crazy?”

I laughed, “Yeah, a bit crazy.”

She laughed with me, relaxed now as we resumed our walk.

Suddenly, out of an alleyway, two men stepped in front of us. I thought it was a bit odd, but Lolitha, presumably accustomed to unwanted male attention, simply held her head high and tried to walk past them.

“These them?” I heard one of the men mutter to the other as we drew up.

“Yep.” Then they jumped on us, covering our mouths and pulling us back into the alley. None of the rest of our group up ahead noticed and I tried to call out, but the man who grabbed me stuffed a filthy rag into my mouth before I could make a noise.

Lolitha was struggling in the grips of the other man and managed to get in a good kick to his bollocks. He yelped, but still held her firmly, pushing her further away from the main street.

In the darkness in the back of the alley I could barely make out what they were doing. The one that held Lolitha grabbed a fistful of her hair and forced her head back.

“Dirty little Lilbitch,” he muttered, his voice dripping with spite and fury, and he slapped her hard around the face with the back of his hand.

I was truly shocked. Not just because this scum had backhanded my friend like she was some common whore, but
Lilbitch
was a curse that had the dubious distinction of being both misogynistic and sacrilegious, and was never,
ever
, spoken in polite company. Which clearly this was not.

I thought they were going to rob us, but the thug holding me twisted my arms up behind me and forced me down onto my knees.

“So she’ll do?” he asked the one holding Lolitha, who was still struggling in vain.

“Yeah, looks like it.”

“What about this one?” I realised he meant me.

“He’s too fair. You’d be able to tell.”

“So what should I do with him?”

“Ow,
khunst
!” Lolitha had managed to get an elbow into her assailant’s windpipe. He jerked her head with his handful of her hair and she dropped down to her knees as well, gurgling in pain. “I dunno. Kill him I suppose.”

Oh shit. Oh holy
shit
. This was not a robbery. This was… Oh shit!

The guy behind me had pulled out a long hunting knife, wickedly sharp, and I could see it gleaming faintly out of the corner of my eye.

The man holding Lolitha bent his head to hers and she snarled at him.

“Say goodbye to your friend, girly.”

The man with the knife held it up to my throat. I was going to die. Just like that. Sweet Lilbecz. I was going to die. I closed my eyes as I felt him tense to draw it across my throat.

Then.

Nothing.

I was dead, clearly. There was no pain. No nothing. I couldn’t feel the man or the knife against my throat anymore. I was dead and this was some kind of afterlife.

Then I heard the sound of someone being sick and I realised I could open my eyes. The two men were lying in heaps on the ground and Lolitha was throwing up against the wall, one hand out to steady herself.

I spat the rag out of my mouth and tried to breathe. Apparently I wasn’t dead. But if I wasn’t dead why was it so hard to get air into my lungs? I sucked furiously, trying to get some oxygen past my constricted throat.

“Oh Jaseth, look! I threw up all my dinner!” Lolitha called out, sounding a bit giddy. “Oh, Jas,
look
.” I was still on my knees, my head down, and I thought she was still talking about vomit. “You were
invisible
.”

That was weird. I looked up to where Lolitha was pointing, and there was another figure, dark against the exit to the alley.

“You two alright?” she asked. Hmmm, voice was familiar, but I couldn’t breathe, let alone think—

“Anna?”

The figure stepped forward and pushed back her hood. It
was
Anna. What the hell?

“You… You killed them?” Lolitha gasped out, still propped against the wall.

Anna nodded. “Aneurisms.”

“Oh. Oh ho ho, that’s… That’s very impressive. Ha,” Lolitha had started giggling and pushed off from the wall, tottering over. “Oh ha ha, oh Jas, we got rescued. And, oh my, ha ha, we got rescued by Lya Myn! We got
rescued
by
Lya Vassalion
!”

“Lolitha!” I warned her feebly. How did she know?

She waved at the air and almost stumbled. “Ha ha, it’s not like it’s hard to tell! With all the, ha ha, bodyguards.” She swung around wildly and pointed at me. “And
you
! Your Mentor’s in love with Lya Myn! Ha ha ha!”

I groaned and tried to stand on wobbly legs. This really was
too much.
Lolitha’s stumbling had brought her right up to Anna who was watching, violet eyes inscrutable.